She dealt her pretty words like Blades
by jomiddlemarch
Summary: Mary decides to confront Emma about her fears.


"The risk, Emma! You must see that—All I ask is that you consider it, the ramifications for you, your family…" Mary exclaimed.

She heard how imploring she sounded, saw by the way Emma had set her pretty mouth that she had been mistaken, that her approach was flawed. She had hoped for better—meeting in the blue parlor she saved for visits with the soldiers' female relatives and the occasional consultation with Captain McBurney and Jedediah regarding her own initiatives for Mansion House; a pot of freshly made tea and matched teacups; and purposefully leaving off her apron and smoothing her skirts carefully over her lap. She had spoken with Chaplain Hopkins earlier the same day and he continued to express grave concerns about the situation but also, clearly, fear, not only apprehension. He had thought Emma might be amenable, so it must be Mary's own error that led to this moment, Emma more Confederate than nurse, for the first time in many weeks.

Jedediah had warned her that it might end this way, but she had been so sure, so confident! He'd looked at her, a look that was like a glancing touch against her hand or loose tendril against her brow and had said,

"I hope you're right, then, Mary. Or perhaps that you are more wrong that you think, that she is only a bored little miss, trying to copy her elder sister."

"I'd be glad to be wrong but I cannot take the chance," she'd said and he'd nodded, resigned to her independence, her insistence. She would never take the easier way if what she thought was right beckoned and he admired it in her; she could see that in the way he regarded her, that even acknowledgement, and the way he would stand aside for her to go forward. And he would remain there, a step apart, if she should need his support.

"No, you're not much of a gambler, are you? I wish you Godspeed then and luck—in equal measure, even if you don't expect to need it," he'd said and walked a little more quickly to the next boy waiting for him, the peaked handkerchief that would be soaked with chloroform and promised temporary oblivion.

Mary had planned these past several nights what she would say, what she might ask. There had been nothing that dispelled her suspicions and it unsettled her, that composite anxiety for the hospital, the Union, Emma and her untrustworthy sister. It receded only in the face of the most demanding work, a boy's terrible suffering, but then it was there in between, after dinner, at the dawn. She had had nightmares all week that lingered like the scent of burning leaves, autumn smoke in her hair.

It had come to nothing. Emma had agreed to sit with her, graceful and gracious, her hands folded in her lap and her blue eyes clear and untroubled. That had not lasted. As Mary had spoken, a little haltingly at first, Emma's mouth had tightened and her eyes began to remind Mary of the dark sky before a storm or the bay in winter when it could freeze despite its salt. When Mary had paused, Emma had begun to speak, serious but not fearful in the least. She was angry, though Mary wondered whom she was most distressed by—Mary, her sister, or herself. Her defense had been fierce and intelligent and Mary had been left with little to say, so she had tried to warn instead of challenge, to instill doubt in that ardent Dixie certainty.

"Nurse Mary! Enough! I know you think you know best, that maybe you even mean to be kind," Emma said, softening a little. But she remained steel underneath and diamond. "But whatever you say, whatever you think, it's just not relevant, you don't know-"

"Emma, it's espionage I mean and if it's true, if she's caught—it's treason!"

"Alice is my sister. Can't you understand that?"

The words were arresting by themselves but they were not alone; Emma's eyes had an odd light in them, a furious passion mixed with something nameless. Mary thought suddenly of how hard it must be for Emma at Mansion House, her family's hotel occupied in the city the Union occupied. She was alien in the place that had given birth to her, at least, that was what others told her. But it had become clear she knew the hospital in ways the rest of the staff did not, knew which locks would not catch, where there might be some serviceable towels tucked away, how opening this window and that would make a room suddenly welcoming.

And Mary thought of what she meant, to have a sister—her own sister Caroline was in Boston, raising two small boys and expecting another child in the winter while her husband was away with the Army. She recalled all the many times they had run together through the woods, the fairy houses they had built of twigs and moss and they how long they'd had to scrub the earth from beneath their nails before supper. They had shared a room, shared the nights when first Mary would fall asleep and then others, Caroline, so that neither was sure when she had ever begun to dream alone. When it was cold enough, they had huddled together like badgers in a sett. They had braided each other's hair every morning and every night, hands drawing their thoughts along the strands, Caroline's dark silk, Mary's wilder curls. She thought she knew every expression in Caroline's grey eyes and that Caroline knew hers; there could be nothing so new about her sister that she did not already know it in some way. Their mother had spoken fondly of it, the strength of the ties between them—Mary realized now those bonds, so resilient and beloved, so comforting, could become a snare. She knew very little of Alice Green but she did know something of Emma, so she took a breath, then another and sighed. She would keep worrying and Henry too and Jed would look more sharply at who walked the halls and with what intentions. There was hardly anything left to say but she must make an end to it.

"Yes, I understand."

Mary drank the tea left in her cup, even though it had cooled. The sugar had settled and the last swallow was too sweet. Emma had been wiser and had not added any. Still, she did not finish her bitter draught and so Mary could not try to read the leaves in the well. There was nothing new they could tell her so she dismissed Emma and collected the tea-set. It would need to be washed before Mary could return to the wards.


End file.
